Business intelligence is defined as the ability of an organization to produce meaningful and useful information to enable more strategic and effective decision-making. Business intelligence allows the organization to provide the appropriate information, at the appropriate time, via the appropriate channels, to the appropriate personnel. Business intelligence technologies may provide assessments of past, current, and future business processes and effects. Business intelligence technologies may also enable better business decision-making by analyzing structured data and business processes.
Business intelligence may achieve the above by performing reporting functions, data mining functions, analytic functions, and predictive functions, for example. With regard to reporting functions, reports are generally understood as documents directed at relaying information in a presentable form to a user. Reports often aim to present information related to a focused topic to the user. A report used within the field of business intelligence reporting may have a specific formatting-standard and purpose.
A business intelligence report may allow a user to make informed decisions that accomplish desired goals and objectives. For example, a business intelligence report may enable the user to understand how best to manage resources and time.